Daunting study

 Chessadmin said in a comment to this post :

"Your description of all the steps it takes to actually improve in a concrete way is daunting, yet realistic. It also means that for those of us who have yet to learn all these things, it means there is plenty of room for improvement !"

What has been daunting is that I dabbled 23 years with tactics. Which in the end lead to the conclusion that chess is about logic. Something I already suspected 23 years ago, but the amount of good advice set me on the wrong foot time and again.

But since I "have seen the light", I looked for chess authors that give advice that is consistent with my findings. And I found two of them:

CM Can Kabadayi with the books:

• The Art of Exchanging Pieces
• The Art of Burying Pieces
• The Art of Awakening Pieces

And a few other books from him that I haven't studied yet but that address a few issues I know that must be addressed.

IM Yuriy Krykun with

• The Unexplored French Defense
• Black is Back: Old Benoni
• The Accelerated Queen's Indian Defense - a full repertoire against 1. d4, 1. c4 and 1. Nf3

All six books are published on Chessable.

What both have in common is that they simplify chess. They bring it back to the bare essentials. They use logic as a tool to prune the branches of your thinking. If you know what pieces, you want to exchange, you only have to think about ways and tactics that could bring the exchange about.

The problem in chess always has been that you constantly wade knee deep through the good advice. CM Kabadayi says what you should trade, while GM Smirnov insists on "to take is a mistake". Both of them are right, of course, but in one position you should listen to CM Kabadayi and in another position you should obey GM Smirnov. You must find out yourself when to do what.

And even that is daunting too at times. In the end TINSTAAFL.

As described in  a comment to this post there must be quite a few aspects be done correctly before you can reap the benefits. As I said in the post:

Take for instance the idea of the good and the bad bishop. When the pawn structure isn't fixed, you cannot say which bishop is good and which is bad.

• So you must develop some logical ideas about how to force the fixing of the pawns. 
• And when the pawns are fixed, you must find tactical ways to trade your bad bishop against his good bishop.
• And when you managed to do so, you must prevent your opponent from unfixing the pawns, otherwise his bishop becomes good again.
• And you must avoid that he trades off his bad bishop, but not in such ridgid way that you compromise your piece play because you have to duck everytime.
• And when you have finally reached the intended good knight against bad bishop endgame, you must learn how how to convert that into a win.

If one aspect fails, it will cost you points. I only started in may this year with the approach of Krykun and Kabadayi. And already in two games out of four this tournament, I could steer the games accordingly the five points above. So yes, in a way it is daunting at times, but playing a game according to a five step plan while depriving your opponent from any counter play whatsoever, is of course fantastic in just over 8 months!